Born in Chicago, Holly Beth Vincent began her music
career in the late-'70s punk scene, playing drums and guitar
and singing in such forgotten bands as the Brothel Creepers
and the all-female Backstage Pass. During a stay in Los
Angeles, she convened Holly and the Italians with drummer
Steve Dalton (aka Steve Young), but the group relocated to
London in 1979, where "Tell That Girl to Shut Up," the 1980
song for which Vincent is still best known, was recorded.
The single established her tough pop-rock style and
briefly captured the full attention of the British press and
public. The success of that belligerent charmer led to a
deal and an album, which was hindered by such problems as
firing the producer halfway through and
starting from scratch with another, losing the drummer in
midstream and having to find a replacement. It took more
than a year to finish, but it was well worth the
wait. Produced in roaring power pop style by Richard
Gottehrer, The Right to Be Italian is a new wave
classic of romantic ups and downs, leather-jacket rebellion
and kitsch culture, carried mightily on Vincent's tough-girl
attitude, full-throated singing, gale-force Brill Building
melodies and chunky
rhythm guitar presence. The hybrid LA/London sound, with
glimpses of the Ramones, Blondie and Cheap Trick, is a
powerful and original creation.

The Right to Be Italian wasn't a commercial
success, and Holly broke up the band, remaining in England
for a time to soft-launch a solo career. The stunning result,
produced by
Mike Thorne, has a misleading title and bears little
resemblance to its predecessor. Holly and the
Italians plays up Vincent's voice and songs in a
mesmerizing and mature swirl of baroque atmospheres, opaque
introspection, sexual ambivalence and psychedelically
distorted hallucinations. The striking music is based on
violin (played by Bobby Valentino of the Fabulous Poodles)
and keyboards (Thorne) as much as guitar. If Joni Mitchell and
Ronnie Spector mated with Nick Cave and Leonard Cohen, the
offspring of their offspring might have conceived something
like this. Although Vincent took some flak for recording a
totally overhauled version of the Buffalo Springfield's "For
What It's Worth," she does manage to make something new and
different out of the well-known tune. Elsewhere, sensitive,
moody originals like "Samurai and Courtesan" and "Uptown"
contrast with upbeat rockers like "We Danced" and "Honalu,"
all displaying a unique viewpoint in subtly evocative
lyrics. Even more than its predecessor, this is an
incredible album by an enormously gifted singer, writer and
performer. (The American release has one different cut and
far better sequencing.)

Vincent didn't release another album for more than a
decade. In the meantime, she surfaced in New York, Los
Angeles and elsewhere, duetting with Joey Ramone on a great
1982 single of "I Got You Babe," serving a brief, unrecorded
stint in the Waitresses and forming a one-gig group called
Bikey with her brother Nick before his tenure as Frank
Black's drummer. Through a number of undocumented bands,
Vincent kept strings (mostly cello) as a distinctive
counterpoint to her punky rock poise.

Vincent's return to the recording studio finally came,
surprisingly enough, through the auspices of Indigo Girl Amy
Ray. She encouraged (and funded) Vincent to form a band and
record America, which was issued on Ray's label,
Daemon. The Oblivious album is roughly produced with the
vocals mixed low and the guitars loud and blurry, but it's
hard-hitting, smartly played and marbled with some great
songs. The reversion to primal rock directness is aerated by
Vincent's self-harmonizing doubletracked singing and broken
by the violinized delicacy of such numbers as "America (I'm
Wasted)" and "Witness." In the obsessive desires of "Crush,"
"D.S.F." and "That Was," the wry disdain of "It's the Sound"
("This life is good for me / It said so on my record sleeve
/ It said so in my favorite books / And on the street when I
get looks") and the taut violence of "Fired Away," Vincent
displays the sinew, melodic acuity and raw nerve that make
her music so compelling. A strong showing after such a long
absence.

The strange (and unfortunately named) fruit of a brief
alliance with Johnette Napolitano, then on her way out of
Concrete Blonde, Vowel Movement is a minor album the
pair improvised on bass (mostly played by Napolitano) and
drums (mostly played by Vincent). Both wrote lyrics and
sang; Vincent overdubbed guitar. Sloppy and undeveloped,
indulgent, haphazard and just flat-out noisy, the album
occasionally happens onto terra firma ("Las Vegas," both
versions of "Jackie Baby," "Jesus," "Death of a Surfer"),
but too much of it flails along shapelessly, a doomed work
in progress.

Following the overdue CD issues of Holly's first two
albums (both
with neat bonus tracks; the solo album adds six, including a
seven-minute mix of "For What It's Worth" and "I Got You
Babe"), the same
label came up with Demos Federico, a strong two-disc
set of demos dating from 1979 to 1998. Early versions of
"Honalu" and "Unoriginal Sin" (which contains the great line
"Give me love, I can take it") prove the intrinsic quality
of the songs Thorne had to work his magic on. A lot of the
left-behind material compiled here is equally impressive:
"Fanzine," "One More Dance," the yearning "Hey Christine,"
"The Longest Breath" and "Mercy" (in two different versions)
are all potent additions to the Vincent canon.